the heat is onWith temperatures rising and quality parks too few and far between, communities of color face a dangerous disparity

the heat is on: a trust for public land special report 1

Table of contents

Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 2

The heat is on ........................................................................................................................... 3

The perils of extreme heat ........................................................................................................ 4

Parks: nature’s cooling centers .................................................................................................. 5

In search of cooling shade, a growing disparity ........................................................................... 7

Methodology ........................................................................................................................... 9

Citations .................................................................................................................................. 10

the heat is on: a trust for public land special report 2

IntroductionThe summer of 2020 is predicted to be the hottest ever recorded. Meanwhile, as the number of

COVID-19 cases continues to surge nationwide, city officials are closing public beaches and pools

and limiting the capacity of cooling centers. This is putting even more pressure on public parks,

which were already in high demand as one of the few places where Americans can escape the

confines of home.

Parks—especially those that are densely wooded and deep green—can counter urban temperatures

exacerbated by heat-trapping buildings, pavement, and concrete. Given the increased importance of

parks during this public health emergency, The Trust for Public Land analyzed park data from across

the country to determine who does and doesn’t have access to this vital public resource. We found:

• Communities with nearby parks can be dramatically cooler than those in so-called “park deserts.”

Our analysis of 14,000 cities and towns shows that nationwide, areas within a 10-minute walk of a

park are as much as 6 degrees cooler than areas beyond that range.

• And yet, not everyone has equal access to the kinds of parks that lower temperatures and allow

for safe social distancing. Our data reveals that across the United States, parks serving primarily

nonwhite populations are half the size of parks that serve majority white populations and five

times more crowded.

• In addition parks serving majority low-income households are, on average, four times smaller

and four times more crowded than parks that serve majority high-income households.

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the heat is on: a trust for public land special report 3

The heat is onSummer is here, and with it, extreme heat, which is the

number one weather-related killer in the United States.

This year, that risk is amplified by the coronavirus, which

is complicating and in some cases even scuttling cities’

plans to help residents stay cool. Many cities are closing

pools, beaches, and spray parks in order to limit the spread

of the virus, while others are scaling back the capacity of

indoor cooling centers or closing them all together.

In the face of these pandemic-enhanced challenges, there’s

one piece of public infrastructure that is proving itself more

vital and necessary than any other time in our history: parks.

As the virus rages on, our nation’s park systems are serving

as a lifeline. They are where we go for exercise and to safely

socialize, to blow off steam, barbecue, or give the kids a place

to run and play. More recently, they’ve served as venues

for protests against racism and police brutality that have

stretched from coast to coast.

a 10-minute walk of a park can be as much as 6 degrees

cooler than neighborhoods outside that range.

More troublingly, the data indicates that not everyone

has equal access to the cooling benefits of parkland. One

hundred million people, or more than one in three Ameri-

cans, do not have a park within a 10-minute walk of home.

And a closer look reveals that nationwide, parks that serve

majority nonwhite populations are, on average, half as

large—45 acres compared to 87 acres—and nearly five times

as crowded as parks that serve majority-white populations.

Nationwide, parks that serve majority

nonwhite populations are, on average, half

as large—45 acres compared to 87 acres—

and nearly five times as crowded as parks

that serve majority-white populations.

With temperatures rising from coast to coast, that disparity

means that Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, Pacific

Islander, and multiracial populations, as well as those with

lower incomes, are at heightened risk.

A recent study by researchers at Portland State University

and the Science Museum of Virginia found a strong correla-

tion1 between exposure to deadly heat and the historically

racist housing policies known as “red-lining,” in which

banks withheld home mortgages from Black families. The

researchers examined 108 cities in the United States and

found that red-lined communities were the hottest neigh-

borhoods in 94 percent of the cities. The study cited a lack

of greenspace and tree canopy as the chief reasons for the

disproportionate heat exposure.

“As cities struggle with extreme heat this summer, parks

are one of the best ways for residents to find relief,” said

Diane Regas, president and CEO of The Trust for Public

Land, a national organization that has built thousands of

parks and protected millions of acres of land. “We all need

and deserve parks—and all of the benefits they provide—all

of the time. But during this period of compounded public

health emergencies, unequal access to quality parks can be

downright dangerous.”

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Explore neighborhood-by-neighborhood data on heat and parks in your community: visit tpl.org/parkscore

And now, parks are helping people cope with summer heat.

Studies show that large parks—especially those with dense

trees and vegetation—can be as much as 17 degrees cooler

than the surrounding cityscape. That is due to the “urban

heat island effect,” a well-documented phenomenon in

which densely packed buildings, concrete, and pavement

trap heat, leading to increased temperatures in areas with

the least amount of green space and vegetation. For the

first time, The Trust for Public Land has assembled the

highest-resolution heat data available for the entire United

States, revealing a stark difference in temperature between

neighborhoods that have parks nearby and those that do

not. Specifically, our researchers studied satellite heat maps

for 14,000 cities and towns and found that areas within

the heat is on: a trust for public land special report 4

The perils of extreme heat

Over the last 30 years, extreme heat, on average, has been

the deadliest form of weather—including floods, extreme

cold, tornadoes, hurricanes, and other events—according

to the National Weather Service. Climate change is making

the problem increasingly more severe, with 19 of the hottest

20 years on record2 occurring in the past two decades. The

Union of Concerned Scientists predicts that, absent efforts

to cut the greenhouse gas emissions responsible for climate

change, the number of Americans3 experiencing 30 or more

days with a heat index above 105 degrees in an average year

will balloon from 900,000 people today to more than 90

million by mid-century.

Extreme heat causes a range of health problems. According

to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, heat

exhaustion—characterized by heavy sweating, dizziness, a

weak pulse, nausea and vomiting, muscle cramps, and head-

ache—can easily escalate to the more dangerous condition

known as heat stroke, a health emergency leading to symp-

toms that include confusion, elevated body temperature, and

loss of consciousness.

Each year, more than 65,000 people visit an emergency

room for heat-related illness and more than 600 people die,

according to federal statistics. But new research indicates

that the number of deaths may, in fact, be significantly

higher than previously thought. A study4 published this

spring in the journal Environmental Epidemiology looked at

deaths during a recent decade in 297 counties in the United

States, representing about three-fifths of the population.

Researchers from Boston University’s School of Public

Health and the University of British Columbia estimated that

heat contributed to the deaths of 5,600 people each year, on

average, from 1997 to 2006.

Experts estimated that extreme heat

contributed to the deaths of an average

of 5,600 people each year between

1997 and 2006.

Experts on heat-related illness, like Gregory A. Wellenius,

a professor of environmental health at Boston University

and senior author of the study, fear that the pandemic will

only cause more Americans to suffer from heat this year,

especially those who lack air-conditioning. In addition to

shuttering beaches and public pools and limiting access to

cooling centers, the pandemic has forced the closure of the

air-conditioned spaces that many people rely on when the

weather warms, including office buildings, stores, movie

theaters, and museums.

Indeed, research shows that the expense of air-conditioning

is a growing burden for low-income people worldwide, with

climate change expected to worsen the problem. A recent

study5 of energy use in eight nations, including Australia,

Spain, and Japan, found that people spent 35 to 42 percent

more on electricity when they adopted air-conditioning,

plunging some into what researchers called “energy

poverty.” Those who can’t afford the increased cost simply

do without.

As with many diseases and conditions, including COVID-19,

nonwhite populations are disproportionately affected by

heat-related illnesses. In California, for instance, emergen-

cy-room visits for heat-related illnesses jumped 35 percent

from 2005 to 2015, but the increases were steeper6 for certain

groups. Hospital visits increased an average of 67 percent for

Black Californians and 63 percent for Latinos; among White

Californians, however, they rose only 27 percent. Urban heat

islands and lack of access to air-conditioning are frequently

cited as factors.

“This summer is projected to be one of the hottest summers on

record,” said Wellenius. “In addition, you have high levels of

unemployment, commercial buildings are closed, and commu-

nity resources are stretched thin. So there is a confluence of

factors making people more vulnerable to extreme heat.”

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Many cities are closing pools, beaches and spray parks in order to limit the spread of COVID-19.

the heat is on: a trust for public land special report 5

Parks: nature’s cooling centers

From Syracuse, New York to Southern California, city

officials are having to balance preventing the spread of

coronavirus with the need to protect residents from extreme

heat. And in many locations, the virus is winning. During

a hot spell in mid-June, officials in Syracuse decided not to

open its cooling centers or spray parks on a 90-degree day,

out of concern for upping the rate of transmission. And

health officials in Los Angeles County, which was struggling

with the state’s biggest COVID-19 caseload in late June,

decided to close all beaches over the Fourth of July weekend.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently

issued guidelines on how best to operate cooling centers

this summer, given social-distancing requirements, and

presented alternatives. The federal agency, for example,

urged cities to develop programs that help people pay their

utility bills, since air-conditioning can be costly to run. And

the agency suggested a temporary ban on utility shut-offs

during heat waves, so residents behind on their bills do not

have to go without air-conditioning.

As part of a multi-faceted plan to combat heat-related illness,

New York City, which closed most of its public pools due

to COVID-19, announced a $55 million program to provide

74,000 air conditioners to low-income residents who are at

least 60 years old. About a third of the AC units will go to

residents in public housing developments.

That announcement followed an open letter in April by

New York City Comptroller Scott M. Stringer, calling on

the city to prevent heat-related deaths. Stringer noted that

more than 80 percent of the heat stroke deaths in recent

years involved victims who were exposed to heat in homes

without air-conditioning.

For cities that decide to operate cooling centers, the C.D.C.

offered a range of recommendations: reducing capacity to allow

for greater distancing, temperature screenings upon arrival,

separate rooms for those who are symptomatic, and even emer-

gency alternatives like parked air-conditioned buses.

Public health experts point out, however, that the coro-

navirus is much less likely to be transmitted outdoors. In

Japan, for instance, health officials found that the chance of

catching the coronavirus is almost 20 times higher indoors

than out. Among the reasons, scientists say, are wind and

sun, which dissipate and destroy the virus, respectively.

Surili Patel, director of the American Public Health Associa-

tion’s Center for Climate, Health and Equity, worries about

the ability of governments to protect citizens from the

dangers of summer heat. “Having enough cooling centers is

certainly a concern, especially as those that exist will have

to operate under diminished capacity,” she said, adding that

cities should partner with community and faith leaders to

increase potential sites.

At the same time, she encouraged Americans to take

advantage of parks, the “natural cooling centers” in their

communities. “Greenery and trees bring down the overall

temperature of an area, and at night they serve to cool

the neighborhood rather than trap the heat,” she said.

“Parks will offer some reprieve for those who don’t have

air-conditioning.”

A growing body of research recognizes the power of trees and

plants to cool the air, not only inside parks, but beyond their

borders as well. A few mechanisms are at work here: from

the simple effect of tree shade to the complex process known

as evapotranspiration. According to the Environmental

Protection Agency, surfaces in shade can be up to 45 degrees

cooler7 than those in sun. (Tree canopy also lessens indoor

temperature, especially when shade covers parts of rooftops

and windows.) Evapotranspiration, meanwhile—the phenom-

enon by which trees pull moisture from the soil and release

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Communities with nearby parks can be dramatically cooler than those in so-called “park deserts.”

the heat is on: a trust for public land special report 6

it through leaves—cools air directly: anywhere from 2 to 9

degrees, depending on tree density, according to the E.P.A.

A 2016 report by The Trust for Public Land8 explored the

ability of trees and other “green infrastructure” to cut urban

heat and emissions. As the report showed, the cooling

effects of parks extend into the surrounding neighborhoods;

one study detected reduced temperatures up to a half mile

away. Moreover, parks combining lawn and trees are more

effective at lowering air temperature than those comprised

of grass only.

In the summer of 2018, a landmark citizen-science project9

funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Admin-

istration demonstrated the striking cooling properties of

trees and vegetation. Temperature readings on a few of the

hottest days that August, in both Washington and Baltimore,

revealed differences of up to 17 degrees between parkland

and neighborhoods dominated by buildings and pavement.

Brendan Shane, climate director at The Trust for Public

Land, pointed out that the coolest temperature read-

ings in Washington came from Rock Creek Park and the

National Arboretum.

“It comes down to the size of the park and how deep-

green the park is,” he said. “In D.C., the parks were heavily

forested, deep-green oases that can really magnify that

cooling impact. The tiny neighborhood park or pocket park,

by contrast, will have some benefits, but they are going to be

a lot less significant than those larger, high-quality parks.”

“It comes down to the size of the park

and how deep-green the park is… heavily

forested, deep-green oases can really

magnify that cooling impact.”

Scientists believe that street trees alone can prevent deaths.

A new study10 in Philadelphia, led by a social scientist

with the U.S. Forest Service and published in the journal

Lancet Planetary Health, looked at the potential impact of

the city’s plan to increase its tree canopy to 30 percent by

2025. Researchers estimated that the additional canopy

could prevent up to 400 premature deaths a year in the

city. Among other things, they cited the ability of trees

and greenspace to reduce heat and air pollution, as well as

boost physical activity and social connection.

Patrick L. Kinney, the Beverly A. Brown professor of urban

health and sustainability at Boston University School of Public

Health, believes that the term “urban heat island” over-simpli-

fies the geography behind the plants-pavement dichotomy.

“The evidence has shown in the past ten years that it’s not

just that cities are hot and the country is cooler,” he points

out. “Within the city, there is a lot of variation in tempera-

ture from place to place. So it’s not an island, but more of an

archipelago. The higher the density of vegetation, the bigger

the cool spot within the city.”

City residents might have a renewed appreciation for

verdant parks this summer, Kinney said. “Buildings absorb a

lot of heat and that heat builds up over time,” he observed.

“Even at night, when temperatures usually go down during

a heatwave, that doesn’t happen indoors because a building

has retained so much heat over the course of the summer.”

“So if you don’t have cooling centers and you don’t have

air-conditioning, you should get to a tree-filled area and I’m

sure it will be better than being inside, especially on the top

floor of an apartment building,” he added. “I think the parks

have a lot of potential benefit, especially this summer.”

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The cooling effects of parks can extend into the surrounding neighborhoods, reducing temperatures up to a half mile away.

the heat is on: a trust for public land special report 7

In search of cooling shade, a growing disparityBut of course not everyone has easy access to a park, and

if they do, that park might not be very large or very green.

The Trust for Public Land analyzed data from 14,000 cities,

towns, and census-designated places across the United

States, finding that Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, Pacific

Islander, and multiracial populations—when they do have

parks within a 10 minute walk—are likely to find small,

crowded spaces, not the kind of parks that allow for easy

social distancing or ample cooling shade.

Outdoors, said that the history of park development is tied

up with the history of white supremacy.

“We need to look at how parklands came to be,” he said.

“That’s very true in terms of our national parks system and

state parks. But even looking at cities, it’s how they were

designed, who they were designed for, and what the histor-

ical reasoning was for that. It’s not surprising, when you

look at parks and even tree cover, how that aligns with other

metrics of socio-economic status.”

The Trust for Public Land’s 2020 ParkScore® Index, which

ranks park systems in the one hundred most populous cities,

shows, with the exception of New Orleans, a paucity of land

devoted to greenspace among the half dozen cities with

majority Black populations.

In Detroit, for instance, where 78 percent of residents are

Black, the city devotes 6 percent of its land to park space,

compared to the national median of 15 percent. In Memphis,

Tennessee, just 5 percent of land area is comprised of parks,

while in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, only 3 percent of the city is

dedicated to parkland.

PA R K L A N D A S P E R C E N T O F C I T Y A R E A I N M A J O R I T Y B L A C K C I T I E S

O N T H E PA R K S C O R E ® I N D E X

National median 15%

Baton Rouge 3%

Memphis 5%

Detroit 6%

Atlanta 6%

Baltimore 10%

New Orleans 26%

Data showing that low-income and nonwhite populations

lack access to spacious, sylvan parks comes as no surprise

to outdoor activists, especially those who advocate for

marginalized communities. Jose Gonzalez, founder of Latino

Experts on race and discrimination assert that Black,

Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, Pacific Islander, and multiracial

populations don’t always feel comfortable in parks, espe-

cially those that serve a majority-white population.

In addition to the startling discovery that parks that serve

a majority nonwhite population are, on average, half as

large—45 acres compared to 87 acres—and nearly five times

as crowded as parks that serve a majority-white population,

our analysis also found that parks serving primarily low-in-

come households are, on average, four times smaller—25

acres versus 101 acres—than parks that serve a majority of

high-income households.

as parks that serve

high-income households.

Parks that serve low-income

households are 1/4 as large

and nearly

times as crowded

4=1,000 people

as parks that serve a

majority-white population.

Parks that serve people of color are 1/2

as large

and nearly

times as crowded5=1,000 people

the heat is on: a trust for public land special report 8

In May, on the same day that George Floyd died in Minne-

apolis with a police officer’s knee on his neck, a White

woman called the police on a Black bird watcher in Central

Park after he asked her to leash her dog. The bird watcher,

Christian Cooper, who happens to sit on the board of New

York City Audubon Society, made a video recording that

went viral. In it, the woman frantically claims during a 911

call that Cooper was physically threatening her, even as he

moves farther and farther away.

For Carolyn Finney, author of Black Faces, White Spaces:

Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans to the Great

Outdoors, the episode illustrated the uneasy feeling that

many Black people, including herself, can have in parks.

“For Black people,” she wrote in an opinion piece in The

Guardian in early June, “navigating both city streets and

hiking trails can be charged; at worst, they are fraught

terrains where we are at the mercy of someone else’s

interpretation of our presence. Too often, by default, Black

people are perceived as threats to White people’s physical

safety. And as a consequence, it is our physical safety that is

compromised…”

Finney, a scholar-in-residence at Middlebury College and

a former member of the National Park System Advisory

Board, said cities needed to redouble their efforts to include

nonwhite communities as stakeholders in the process

of creating and programming parks. She notes that this

country’s Jim Crow laws applied to not just restaurants and

movie theaters, but to parks and beaches too.

“This is why a lot of us emphasize the issue of represen-

tation,” she said. “If you want to represent Latinx people,

for example, then bring in someone who is Lantinx. You’re

dealing with systemic racism that has been in place for

many decades. It’s not that people of color don’t care about

their parks. Sometimes, it’s that no one has ever asked them

what they think. Cities need to make space for their voices.”

While park agencies may not have tremendous leeway in

creating large new parks in highly developed cities, there

are other ways to connect city dwellers to parkland, park

advocates say.

Gonzalez says building new urban parks is important. But

so is introducing residents to parks that, while farther

afield, may be closer than many realize. He points to the

Roving Ranger, a “park-mobile” operated by the Golden Gate

National Parks Conservancy in San Francisco. The vehicle

visits neighborhoods and community events to help educate

residents about their nearby parks, as well as provide infor-

mation on how to visit them using public transportation.

“It’s a way to bring the park to the people, almost like an

ice cream truck,” Gonzalez says. “The park truck shares

what is accessible and what the time-distance is, as well as

the programming. In other words, ‘here’s what is available

within a half hour; here’s what is available within one hour

or two hours.’”

For those lucky enough to live by a park, the cooling capacity

of nature is readily apparent. Lory Pollina, a musician and

artist in Buffalo, New York, where the coronavirus kept

cooling centers closed during an unusually hot day in June,

lives a block from Delaware Park. It is one of several Buffalo

parks designed 150 years ago by Frederick Law Olmsted.

Because Pollina’s apartment does not have air conditioning,

he seeks refuge from the summer heat during his early-

morning strolls around the park’s oblong Hoyt Lake.

“There are trees around the lake and there’s usually a

breeze,” said Pollina, a volunteer with the Buffalo Olmsted

Parks Conservancy. “I like to walk in the morning because

it’s cooler. Nature is very healing when the city is hot.”

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Outdoor activists who advocate for marginalized communities say that the history of park development is tied up with the history of white supremacy.

the heat is on: a trust for public land special report 9

MethodologyThe Trust for Public Land prepared data for town and city

boundaries by converting United States Census Bureau-

based borders into an open-standard format representing

geographical features. Using the Descartes Labs platform,

we then accessed NASA’s Landsat 8 thermal band data for

14,000 towns, cities, and census-designated places, focusing

on the period of June 1 to September 30, 2019. Satellite data

measure the temperature at the surface, rather than ambient

temperatures, which are typically taken about six feet above

the ground. While ambient temperature is a more accurate

measure of how people experience heat, we used satellite data

because it is more widely available and can reveal heat island

information for all 14,000 towns and cities nationwide.

After performing a quality check on a statistically significant

sample of the Landsat data, we detected errors along the

edges of scenes, or digital images, in a very small percentage

of the output datasets—about 1.5 percent. Typically two

adjacent scenes for the same period would appear as one

continuous image. When the edge of a scene is visible,

that means there is enough of a difference in temperature

between two images. For cities such as these where we could

not find two 2019 scenes that were close enough in tempera-

ture to not show the scene boundaries, we used summer

2018 data in combination with the 2019 data to eliminate the

scene boundary errors. Because the output data consists of

billions of pixels, it is likely that a very small percentage of

errors still exists in the output data.

The Trust for Public Land wrote software that converts

thermal data into a heat value, expressed in degrees Fahr-

enheit, for every 30-meter by 30-meter geographic area,

or pixel. The heat values were used to calculate the mean

temperature value for a given municipality. The difference

between the mean temperature value for an entire town or

city and the heat value of a single pixel was then calculated.

This difference is known as the heat anomaly.

To compare park size and crowding by race and income,

we examined parks that serve residents in all 14,000 cities,

towns, and census-designated places in the United States. We

omitted parks that were greater than 70,000 acres, such as

large conservation areas and National Forests. This ended up

excluding 99 park areas out of a total of more than 123,000.

To calculate average park size according to race and income,

we looked at the population that lives within a 10-minute

walk of each park. Population was derived from 2019 Fore-

cast Census Block Groups provided by ESRI. Rather than

using buffers, we used park service areas that were gener-

ated from a walkable street network derived from ESRI’s

StreetMap Premium. These parks and service areas were

previously collected and created for our ParkServe® platform.

We focused our analysis to look at parks that serve a

subset of race and income categories (majority low-income,

majority White, majority-nonwhite, etc.) and calculated

average park size for each subset. We used this same process

to set up our analysis to calculate crowding. We calculated

crowding by normalizing park size to one acre and calcu-

lating the proportion of people served by one park acre.

the heat is on: a trust for public land special report 10

Citations1. Jeremy S. Hoffman et al., “The Effects of Historical Housing

Policies on Resident Exposures to Intra-Urban Heat: A

Study of 108 U.S. Urban Areas,” Climate 8, no. 1 (January

2020), https://www.mdpi.com/2225-1154/8/1/12.

2. Brady Dennis, Andrew Freedman, and John Muyskens,

“2019 Capped World’s Hottest Decade in Recorded

History,” Washington Post (January 15, 2020), https://www.

washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/01/15/2010s-

hottest-decade-world/?arc404=true.

3. Kristina Dahl et al., “Killer Heat in the United States:

Climate Choices and the Future of Dangerously Hot Days,”

Union of Concerned Scientists report (July 2, 2019), https://

www.ucsusa.org/resources/killer-heat-united-states-0.

4. Kate R. Weinberger et al., “Estimating the Number of Excess

Deaths Attributable to Heat in 297 United States Counties,”

Environmental Epidemiology 4, no. 3 (June 2020), https://

journals.lww.com/environepidem/fulltext/2020/06000/

estimating_the_number_of_excess_deaths.1.aspx.

5. Teresa Randazzo, Enrica De Cian, and Malcolm N. Mistry,

“Air Conditioning and Electricity Expenditure: The Role of

Climate in Temperate Countries,” Economic Modelling 90

(August 2020): 273–287, https://www.sciencedirect.com/

science/article/pii/S0264999319308168?via%3Dihub#!.

6. Manas Mishra, “Heat-Related Illness Affects Ethnic Groups

Disproportionately,” Physician’s Weekly (February 26, 2019), https://

www.physiciansweekly.com/heat-related-illness-affects-ethnic/.

7. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Using Trees and

Vegetation to Reduce Heat Islands,” https://www.epa.gov/

heatislands/using-trees-and-vegetation-reduce-heat-islands.

8. Urban Climate Lab, Georgia Institute of Technology, for

The Trust for Public Land, The Benefits of Green Infrastructure

for Heat Mitigation and Emissions Reductions in Cities (June

2016), https://www.tpl.org/benefits-green-infrastructure-

heat-mitigation-and-emissions-reductions-cities.

9. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, “Hot Days

in the City? It’s All About Location” (October 15, 2018), https://

www.noaa.gov/news/hot-days-in-city-it-s-all-about-location.

10. Michelle C. Kondo et al., “Health Impact Assessment of

Philadelphia’s 2025 Tree Canopy Cover Goals,” Lancet Planetary

Health 4, no. 4 (April 2020), https://www.thelancet.com/

journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(20)30058-9/fulltext.

The Trust for Public Land creates parks

and protects land for people, ensuring

healthy, livable communities for

generations to come.

photos: front, istock user tomwang112,

jerry monkman

tpl.org